Out of the Gate, Liebau Has Tough Job at Santa Anita

In 1992, when John Harris was chairman of the Bay Meadows track in San Mateo, he asked Jack Liebau, a horse owner and breeder and retired attorney, if he’d take over running the front office on an “interim basis.”

Liebau hadn’t practiced law for four years, and it had been much longer since he had worked for a track. When his father, an accountant, ran the Sonoma County Fair during the summers in Santa Rosa, a very young Liebau, on his bicycle, delivered the box-seat tickets to people around town.

That interim job at Bay Meadows has never ended. Even when Harris left the board, Liebau stayed on. Then this summer Liebau’s new boss, Frank Stronach, approached him with another proposition. Stronach, an insatiable collector of tracks, had bought Bay Meadows, as well as Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, and he wanted Liebau to remain in charge in San Mateo, while also becoming general manager, for lack of a better title, of all three operations.

Some say Santa Anita, with its battle in the 1990s to stem the erosion of on-track attendance, is a full-time job in itself, but Liebau, who turned 62 on Christmas Eve, is not intimidated. He moves into the ever-changing fishbowl at the historic track today, with the launching of Santa Anita’s 64th season.

“It’s a new challenge, more of a challenge than I expected,” Liebau said. “I guess Frank hired me because he appreciated what I had done at Bay Meadows. We’ve had relative success up there, compared to what many of the other tracks have been doing.”

Unlike his worldwide automotive-parts business, Stronach’s racing empire has been a vortex of change. Liebau is the third chief executive to work at Santa Anita since Stronach bought the place for $126 million in December 1998. At Gulfstream Park, a Florida track bought by Stronach for $87 million in 1999, there also has been a wholesale turnover at the top, and earlier this month Mark Feldman, barely through the door, resigned as chief executive of Magna Entertainment, the umbrella corporation for the racetrack properties. That has left Stronach as his own Magna chairman on what is said to be an interim basis.

Preceding Liebau under Stronach have been Cliff Goodrich, a long-time executive under the late Bob Strub, who stayed on as the track was sold twice, and Lonny Powell, who arrived, hand-picked by Stronach, in July 1999. Powell, quickly disenchanted when Liebau’s Bay Meadows duties were expanded, officially resigned in October.

“I’ve been given an awesome responsibility,” Liebau said. “Right or wrong, I’ve always been a traditionalist, and knowing Santa Anita’s tradition, I realize what this responsibility is.”

With his son, Jack Jr., and other partners, Liebau has bred and raced thoroughbreds in California for years, but he believes his first visit to Santa Anita came as a schoolboy, when his father raced a harness horse there. Some of the best thoroughbreds the older Liebau has campaigned include Forzando, winner of the 1985 Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park, and Yashgan, who won the 1985 Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita. Liebau sold his interest in Trailthefox, a $50,000 claim who won this year’s Arlington-Washington Futurity, before the colt’s 13th-place finish in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He has about a dozen horses in training, including Prized Prospect, who finished third in the recent Waya Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Since 1966, Liebau has lived in San Marino, flying the frequent shuttles from Burbank to Northern California after taking over at Bay Meadows. With the addition of Golden Gate to his responsibilities, his frequent-flier miles will multiply.

The biggest challenge, Liebau says, is to rejuvenate the fan base, to somehow keep the customers coming to the track while simultaneously offering the product at off-track facilities. Goodrich and Powell knew this too, and while Goodrich was stymied in his efforts, Powell really didn’t have the time to forge an imprint.

“The off-track experience isn’t going to capture new fans,” Liebau said. “And no matter how much promoting we do, the success you have is predicated on what you put on the track. It’s frustrating sometimes. You’ll have 12 horses running for a $62,000 claiming price, then you’ll come up with just five when you put up a lot of money in a Grade I race. Field size is something we just have to keep battling.”

The opening-day Malibu, a $200,000 Grade I stake and the opener of the three-race Strub series for foals of 1997, is a case in point. The Deputy, winner of this year’s Santa Anita Derby, had been expected to run, but he suffered a career-ending tendon injury, and the loss of only one horse is more crucial than it used to be. Director of racing Mike Harlow started with seven horses when entries were drawn, but Millencolin, who’s on an eight-race losing streak, was scratched, and Jim Chapman, who trains Caller One, is also eyeing Sunday’s El Conejo Handicap, a shorter race.

Caller One, fourth after setting blistering fractions in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in his last race, is the 9-5 favorite on the morning line.

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Santa Anita Facts

* Meet dates--83 days, today through April 16.

* Racing days--Wednesday through Sunday, except this Wednesday and Jan. 17. Monday racing Jan. 1 and 15, Feb. 19 and April 16.

* First post--Today, Feb. 3, March 3 and April 7, noon. Jan. 28, 11 a.m. April 6, 13, 3 p.m. All other weekdays, 1 p.m. Weekends, Jan. 1 and 15 and Feb. 19, 12:30 p.m.

* Grade I races--$200,000 Malibu, today; $200,000 La Brea, Saturday; $200,000 Santa Monica Handicap, Jan. 27; $200,000 Las Virgenes, Feb. 10; $200,000 Santa Maria Handicap, Feb. 18; $1-million Santa Anita Handicap, March 3; $300,000 Santa Margarita Handicap and $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks, March 10; $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, April 7; $400,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap, April 14.

* Other major races--$250,000 San Fernando Breeders’ Cup Stakes, Jan. 13; $500,000 Strub, Feb. 3; $300,000 San Antonio Handicap, Feb. 4; $200,000 La Canada, Feb. 11; $400,000 Frank E. Kilroe Mile, March 3.

* Defending champions--Jockey Corey Nakatani, 82 wins; trainer Bob Baffert, 40 wins.